I made an open-source Raspberry Pi based Node-RED box to use with popular breakouts and put into interactive exhibits, escape room games, tradeshow demos, ...

[u/SpuQyballz]

With Raspberry Pi the obvious fan-favorite SBC for thinkering, an enclosure that's easily 3D printed within a few hours on an A1 Mini, and using the Edgeberry ecosystem for essential IoT robustness, ... . I'm not done yet, but too excited not to share: https://github.com/ThatRedBox

[u/skinwill]

I’ve made so many of these custom knowing the alternative was something like a RevPi which can be outside the budget of many projects.

I’m glad this exists.

[u/SpuQyballz → u/skinwill]

That's the exact angle why this project came into existence!

[u/skinwill → u/SpuQyballz]

I used to use a bunch of these or similar. Grove ports on this would have been amazing. The metal case with mounting tabs were a game changer.

The only problem I ran into was cooling. I was able to sink a lot of heat to the case itself but I never figured out how to wedge in a fan. Fortunately Node-Red alone didn’t exactly peg the CPU so I didn’t run into thermal throttling too bad.

Does your solution make the 40pin available? I was able to use 40pin to screw terminal break outs for a bunch of things which made replacement easy. When a pi would die there was only one massive connector to worry about.

[u/SpuQyballz → u/skinwill]

Thanks for sharing! That one looks like it could cover a lot of applications, too!

In the Red[box], The 40-pin header is used by the peripheral components and I/O, so no straight-forward possibilities for adding on additional hardware. But replacing the Pi is super straight-forward, too. I used to be responsible for 400+ mini computers in a museum, so maintainability is something that I know is very important from experience.

[u/skinwill → u/SpuQyballz]

400 is a job! What did you use for fleet management?

[u/SpuQyballz → u/skinwill]

When I started the job, there was none. Manual inspection of each device, manually updating by crawling under an exhibit with laptop, ... . The Red[box] is built directly upon the (fully open source) Edgeberry project, which includes the self-hostable device hub for managing devices and routing data between devices and server applications...

https://github.com/Edgeberry

[u/skinwill → u/SpuQyballz]

Very cool. Years back I managed devices through GitHub. They would boot, connect to WiFi, sync a folder off GitHub then run a script they find in the folder. It was crude but it worked surprisingly well at the time. I even used to use Jenkins plugins to do custom management dashboards.

Edgeberry looks better than something like jfrog, honestly.

[u/SpuQyballz → u/skinwill]

I tend to jokingly say that one does not know IoT if they haven't ever attempted to make an IoT platform - often by accident, through organic growth/escallation of a project 😁. In this way we shaped the Internet of Things together, through creative solutions for the massive complexity that rises from connecting another device, as a manner of speaking

[u/skinwill → u/SpuQyballz]

Oh yea. Everyone wants to make ‘the next’ until the budget slaps them upside the head.

Again, I’m glad there’s people like you bringing products like RedBox to market.

You think it will ever be as simple as LEGO and sold somewhere like tindie or (gasp) Amazon?

[u/SpuQyballz → u/skinwill]

That's the dream, right? - Yes, that's what I'm aiming for with the Red[box] project. You totally got the vibe! Feel free to fork!

[u/InnerDotting → u/skinwill]

It's definitly something !Good job OP

[u/NoisePollutioner]

Please make a tubular form factor and call it RedTube

[u/SpuQyballz → u/NoisePollutioner]

Though that would reach a lot of people, I'm not sure if it's the right audience 🤔

[u/BobcatM17]

Just use an AMX Muse controller. Add CE control extenders if needed. Use their touch panels or keypads. You can even run dashboard on their panels or use their TP5 designer to build a custom UI.

[u/SpuQyballz → u/BobcatM17]

Big difference in budget though! But very good tip!